Going Home

If the old adage stating that one can never go home again is true, it seems that Pavel Datsyuk is intent on testing that theory. It was announced early today that Pavel Datsyuk is heading back to Yekaterinburg after signing a one-year deal with Avtomobilist in the KHL. I don't know if Datsyuk just likes the colour red as seen in the picture, but he goes to a team that wears red and black after spending his NHL time in red with the Detroit Red Wings. While most 41 year-old professional hockey players are thinking about hanging up the skates, Datsyuk seems content in avoiding Father Time for at least one more season while pursuing a Gagarin Cup championship with his hometown team.

Back on May 1, I wrote here on this very blog, "My guess is he's going home to retire in the next few years." After starting his career with Dynamo Yekaterinburg in the Russian Super League prior to the formation of the KHL, he left Russia to find a home in Detroit where he assembled his own trophy case that saw him win two Stanley Cups, three Selke Trophies and four consecutive Lady Byng Memorial Trophies to go along with 918 points in 953 career games. He did record 12 goals and 30 assists last year in St. Petersburg, but the chances of him coming back to the NHL - only to Detroit, as per his agent - were closer to none than slim with the Red Wings going through a major rebuild both on and off the ice.

While he helped St. Petersburg to a Gagarin Cup championship in 2017 and then became the oldest member of the Triple Gold Club after the Olympic Athletes from Russia won the men's hockey competition in Pyeongchang in 2018, Datsyuk had clearly lost a step or two when it came to his once-elusive speed. The hands and the vision were certainly still there, but he visually looked slower than most had remembered him from his days in Detroit. Those hands and vision join a solid Avtomobilist team that looks like it should compete for the Gagarin Cup next season with the likes of Nigel Dawes and Geoff Platt there, but nothing is ever given in pro sports. The Yekaterinburg team will certainly have challenges next season, but Datsyuk's talent and experience should prove very valuable for the club in overcoming these challenges.

Datsyuk released a statement that read,

Dear Friends, The St. Petersburg stage of my career has come to an end. These were the memorable years. I want to say thank you to the SKA club. In St. Petersburg there are wonderful conditions for games and training, attentive staff - all this helps to concentrate exclusively on hockey. Such a system is not a single year, and this is a huge merit of the club's leadership.

And with that, Datsyuk's era in St. Petersburg ends and a new one begins in Yekaterinburg.

If the Magic Man is officially going home to end his career, he deserves to be honoured in his hometown. For all he's done in his career and for his country, a proper send-off in his hometown would be appropriate. There's no guarantee that this is Datsyuk's last kick at the can, though, and he could pull a "Chris Chelios" and play until he's like 300. However, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that one can indeed go home again. For Pavel Datsyuk, it seems to be the most appropriate place for him at this point in his career.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Growlin' To A Championship

Feast your eyes, folks, on the latest Toronto-affiliated team to win a championship. The Marlies pulled off the feat last season in the AHL, and now the Maple Leafs' ECHL affiliate in the Newfoundland Growlers have won the Kelly Cup after a six-game series victory over the Toledo Walleye. The party on the Rock at Mile One Arena in St. John's was boisterous as the hometown Growlers downed Toledo 4-3 to capture Canada's first-ever ECHL championship, and there was no shortage of fan support from the Newfoundland faithful in supporting their pro hockey team just as they had done for all the previous teams that called St. John's home. The difference? This time ended with a trophy being hoisted above the ice for the home side!

Growlers owner Dean MacDonald gave a ton of credit to the fans who came out and supported the team. The fans poured out of the arena and honked car horns and cheered loudly on the streets for their team as they brought home the first-ever professional championship to the province. For an ECHL team, the fan support means life or death in most cases, and it's pretty clear that the fans in and around St. John's, Newfoundland are pretty special considering how they've supported various AHL teams throughout the years before getting their new ECHL franchise this year. Clearly, the hockey market in St. John's is a loyal and passionate one, and the fans do indeed deserve a ton of credit for their support.

"I can't describe it, I cannot describe it, so good, we finally won the cup," Donna Brown, who has not missed a single home game, told the CBC. "It's amazing. It's the loudest I have ever heard at Mile One. It is fantastic."

For the historians out there, four of the six games in the final were decided by one goal with Games One and Two needing overtime to reach a final - Newfoundland won both, it should be noted. Newfoundland defeated the Brampton Beast in six games, the Manchester Monarchs in six games, the Florida Everblades in five games, and the Toledo Walleye in six games to claim the Kelly Cup. Despite being outscored 18-13 against Brampton in the opening round, including an 8-2 loss, Newfoundland eliminated the Beast. They then outscored Manchester 20-11 in winning that series before really putting the defence on display as Newfoundland grounded the Everblades in outscoring them 20-6 in those five games that included three shutouts. In the final, Newfoundland outscored Toledo 17-16 in winning the Kelly Cup.

In the entire playoffs, the Growlers only trailed once in a series - 1-0 to Manchester - while winning two-or-more games in a row in a series five separate times. Winning back-to-back games obviously puts your opponent at a disadvantage in seven-game series, and it was these runs that really helped to power the Growlers through the playoffs. They opened the playoffs against the Beast with three-straight wins before winning in six games. They won three-in-a-row after dropping Game One against Manchester, eventually winning in six games. They book-ended a Game Three Florida win with two wins in both Games One and Two and Games Four and Five to eliminate the Everblades. And they opened the final with two wins against Toledo before alternating wins to capture the Kelly Cup in six games. Winning in bunches makes life easier in the playoffs, and the Growlers went on mini-streaks in each series including winning six of seven games from Game One in the Florida series to Game Three of the Kelly Cup Final.

Among the players who celebrated tonight were four men who were born in the province of Newfoundland - captain James Melindy, assistant captain Adam Pardy, Zach O'Brien, and Marcus Power. Power and O'Brien are from St. John's while Melindy hails from Goulds and Pardy calls Bonavista home. O'Brien led all ECHL players in playoff scoring with 29 points, and he was named as the winner of the June M. Kelly Playoffs Most Valuable Player Award. O'Brien also tied the record for the second-most goals in a playoff campaign with 16, one back of the all-time record set by Richmond's Blaine Moore in 1995 and equalled by Peoria's J.F. Boutin in 2000. Melindy only had one assist in the 23 games he played, but the captain is wearing the letter on his chest for everything else he does on and off the ice for the team. Power scored four goals and added 11 helpers in 21 games, and Pardy recorded four assists in 22 games.

Where this good news story takes a bit of a detour is that there was a rumour that Adam Pardy was likely to retire at age 35 after suffering a serious concussion Sweden the year before if the Growlers won the Kelly Cup. With the Kelly Cup now calling St. John's home, will the big defenceman call it a career? Here's hoping he doesn't, but if he does he's had a heckuva career with NHL stops in Calgary, Dallas, Buffalo, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Nashville before finally returning home. If he can play a season or two more and raise the profile of the sport even more, Adam Pardy would be a great ambassador for hockey on the Rock. If he decides he's had enough, he'll still be one of the bets players to hail from Newfoundland while still being a great ambassador.

After all the numbers and stats and hoopla surrounding this win has died down, I'm happy for the fans of the Growlers. St. John's has seen its fair share of almost-wons with the AHL teams that have called the island home, but they've never had a championship parade in any sport snake through the downtown area. They'll finally get one thanks to the Growlers, a team that Kyle Dubas' fingerprints are on. If only the one that he's in charge of daily could find the same push as the AHL Marlies and the ECHL Growlers - back-to-back championships for the Leafs' affiliates! - maybe they'd eventually break the curse of 1967 in Toronto.

Congratulations to the Newfoundland Growlers, your 2019 ECHL Kelly Cup champions!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Officially Off The Roster

The "Summer of Chevy" has officially started as he's been busy signing draft picks and keeping Laurent Brossoit in the fold with a new contract. Of course, fans in Winnipeg are still holding their collective breath as Patrik Laine, Kyle Connor, Jacob Trouba, and a number of other key free agents are still pending, but we scratch one of those names off the list as GM Kevin Cheveldayoff salvaged what he could for a guy that seemed unlikely to sign a fiscally-conservative deal in Winnipeg when bigger dollar signs are available in free agency. While his time here didn't work as well as planned after the Jets made a blockbuster deal to get him, Kevin Hayes is no longer in the plans, it seems, as his rights were moved today.

The Winnipeg Jets traded the right to negotiate with Kevin Hayes up to July 1 to the Philadelphia Flyers today for a fifth-round pick in 2019. The move officially cuts ties between Hayes and the Jets, but it re-unites Hayes with former New York Rangers and current Philadelphia Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault under whom Hayes found the greatest team success of his career thus far, but not so much in terms of offensive production which seemed to flourish under Vigneault's replacement in New York in David Quinn. With over $33 million in cap space to use, finding the money to sign Hayes shouldn't be a problem for the Flyers who can then explore all sorts of possibilities down the middle.

With Claude Giroux capable of playing all three forward positions, this may allow Hayes to center Giroux and Jakub Voracek on the Flyers' top line and use his offensive gifts that he's shown. If he slots in further down the roster, there are all sorts of possibilities of re-igniting the career of James van Riemsdyk, getting Nolan Patrick rolling on the wing, boosting the production of Travis Konecny, or pairing with other newly-minted free agents. While he was used in a high number of defensive situations in New York, the emergence of Sean Couturier as a reliable defensive center may allow Vigneault to take the leash off Hayes.

Whatever fans want to think of Hayes' time in Winnipeg, they should realize that he did make the team better. Yes, there were no Paul Stastny moments that fans will recall, but Hayes made the second line much better than what the Jets had skated with since January. While he didn't set the world on fire or propel Laine to hit 50 goals or get Ehlers to 90 points, Hayes was a solid producer who was defensively sound in his own zone. He won face-offs, he checked well, he had good vision in the offensive zone, and he was a solid addition to the power-play. For the Jets, they now have the same hole in the lineup they did in February, and there isn't an internal solution present at this time.

The fifth-round pick that Kevin Cheveldayoff salvaged for a player he was unlikely to sign is probably the best return he would have received in any situation. The fact that he got something for an asset that was likely walking in one month's time is better than getting nothing, so take what one can get in this situation.

If the Flyers can sign Hayes, they get much better. And they still have a ton of money to spend on improvements.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Going Home Again?

Dustin Boyd, born in Winnipeg and drafted by the Calgary Flames, made the decision to sign another one-year contract with Barys Astana in his home country of Kazakhstan. If that last portion of the previous sentence sounds odd, Boyd made the effort to ascertain Kazakhstani citizenship to play for the country in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics as Kazakhstan looked to add some established talent to their lineup at the Olympics. Regardless of his home country, the Canadian-Kazakhstani professional hockey player will suit up for the Astana-based KHL squad for eighth season in the Kazakhstan capital.

While the last few seasons have seen him shuffled between Moscow Dynamo and Barys Astana, Boyd has always been a fairly consistent performer with Barys Astana. His 112 goals and 132 assists in 396 KHL games over his eight-year career in the KHL is solid, but he has missed a handful of games in 2016-17 after breaking his leg in a preseason game that limited him to just 30 games that year. His last two seasons that saw him play 53 games in Moscow before returning to Astana for 51 games were certainly his least productive, combining for just 14 goals and 20 assists in 104 games.

The key for Boyd's play seemed to be his linemates as he was dynamic with both Nigel Dawes and Brandon Bochenski, but Bochenski retired after Boyd signed with Dynamo while Dawes signed with Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg last season and continued his torrid scoring pace. Boyd's season last year saw him suit up for 51 games with Astana after signing with them in the off-season only to be sent back to Dynamo Moscow late in the season on loan before rejoining Barys Astana for a solid playoff run that saw the team make the Gagarin Cup semi-finals. Like two star-crossed lovers, Boyd signed another one-year pact with Astana this off-season as he'll work to restore his game to his previous level to help Barys find new heights.

I'm happy for Dustin Boyd. For a kid who couldn't find a spot with Calgary before being shuffled off to Nashville and Montreal, he has fund a home in Kazakhstan and has done very well for himself. While the distance between his hometown and his new home isn't easily navigated, he certainly has made a name for himself as both a hockey player and Kazakhstani citizen in his time in the KHL. Here's hoping he finds some magic with Astana again this season in his ninth KHL campaign.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Incommunicado? - The Sequel

Sometimes, all you want is a straight answer. After it was revealed by former ECHL commissioner Patrick Kelly on the Fox Morning Blitz radio show on 1230 WCWA in Toledo, Ohio that the Colorado Eagles, the former ECHL and current AHL team, had kept the Kelly Cup and not returned it to the league, there was all sorts of cryptic speak and vague comments made by Colorado owner Martin Lind that made it sound like the Eagles had tried to return the Kelly Cup, but the league was having none of it. Clearly, having a league's championship trophy possessed by a team no longer in the league is entirely a situation the ECHL likely doesn't want, the league said they would issue a statement today to try and clarify these rather muddy waters. To reiterate, all I want is a straight answer so that the newly-made Kelly Cup - the fourth of its kind - wouldn't be needed when either Newfoundland or Toledo wins the Kelly Cup Final.

Here is what the ECHL released today with regards to yesterday's news.

As stated by ECHL Commissioner Emeritus Patrick J. Kelly yesterday morning, the tradition of returning the Championship Trophy to the League was not honored by the Colorado Eagles. Despite a confirmed plan with Eagles' management to return the Kelly Cup to the ECHL in December 2018, the arrangement was not fulfilled.

In reaction to this, the League created a new Kelly Cup, complete with the history of players, coaches, and staff that have earned ECHL Championships over the past 30 years, including the inscription of 'Patrick J. Kelly' on the Cup itself to honor the man that is the trophy's namesake. This Cup represents the fourth Kelly Cup in ECHL history, with the older models enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

If the Colorado Eagles do intend to return the Kelly Cup, the ECHL welcomes its return so that it too may be a part of hockey history.

The ECHL looks forward to awarding the Kelly Cup and all that it represents for hockey to the Champion of the 2019 Kelly Cup Finals.

Look, I get this response. The ECHL, in the wake of this embarrassing moment, is taking a more passive approach in trying to reclaim something that is theirs from a team - the Colorado Eagles - who seem intent on keeping it. The statement above does nothing to answer questions or provide a resolution, but it does share in the blame of "the arrangement" regarding the return the Kelly Cup to the ECHL not being fulfilled. This is a solid public relations move when it comes to damage control and keeping the lines of communication - as damaged as they may be - between the ECHL and the Colorado Eagles open.

However, this statement answers no questions that were raised through the statements of both Patrick Kelly or Martin Lind. And, for what it's worth, that's likely the best way to settle this dispute between the former ECHL club and the league.

By not pointing fingers or playing the blame game, the ECHL can lose this dispute in the court of public appeal, but still win fan approval by getting the Kelly Cup back from Colorado by playing the passive role. The short-term outrage felt by the ECHL over this debacle ever happening will be solved by the long-term gains of getting back their league's championship trophy had back from the Eagles.

On the flip side, the Eagles will be required to answer no further questions on the matter if they simply return the trophy and focus on the upcoming AHL season. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. The ECHL is happy with the return of the trophy, and the Eagles can continue as if nothing had ever happened. Both sides walk away without having lost anything credible in the long-term.

As it stands, the ECHL has placed the ball squarely in the court of the Colorado Eagles. It will be up to Colorado owner Martin Lind and his team to make contact with the ECHL and work to facilitate the return of the Kelly Cup to the league. This all goes away in a very timely manner if Lind does this, and it can all be chalked up to miscommunication and a misunderstanding between two parties.

The only way this gets any worse? Lind decides he's not returning the trophy.

Do the right thing here, Mr. Lind, for all parties involved.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!